


Can't Drink This Away

by lazyrobokitty



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Angst, Drinking, M/M, Multiverse, Past Character Death, imthesexycopter, warrior-prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:30:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4663293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyrobokitty/pseuds/lazyrobokitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t always react the same way when you’re drunk. Sometimes you’re on top of the world, and others you’re at your lowest. Rodimus usually comes away the former, but tonight he’s about to experience something very different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Drink This Away

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot is dedicated to imthesexycopter over on Tumblr. *raises a glass* This angst is for you my friend, may we drown it with many much fluff at a later date.
> 
> This one-shot is based on a relationship between two roleplay characters on Tumblr. If your interested in the characters, please visit the accounts and enjoy further shenanigans. :D  
> Whirl - http://imthesexycopter.tumblr.com  
> Rodimus http://warrior-prime.tumblr.com

Rodimus slumped himself down at the bar next to Whirl, giving his partner a weak smile. Today had been rough, rougher than a day of report filling could justify, and he was looking forward to nothing more than just having a drink with his…boyfriend? That word combined with Whirl usually still made him feel giddy with excitement, but tonight the idea of the whole thing just made his spark sink further.

He really needed a drink today.

“Hey, where have you been?” concerned, but seemingly unsure of whether to comment on his partner’s sour demeanour, Whirl pushed a cube over to the Prime, “Don’t tell me Tailgate got lost on your tiny little ship again.”

“Hey, that only happened one time,” the flame coloured mech gave the other a true smirk of amusement, spoiler starting to flick upwards. Once again Whirl knew how to make him feel better without even trying, the unease that had previously settled over him through the day starting to lift away. “Little guy got confused was all. But no, I’ve had a stack of reports to fill as tall as Magnus, it’s insane.” And sadly, that was hardly an over-statement. Now that his small crew were off Cybertron and out of immediate danger; reports, invoices and all kinds of paperwork was now very much expected of him, and with no Magnus in his world to help him time manage anything it was becoming a real uphill struggle. One difficult enough to make him want to take up drinking full time.

“What and you can’t just hand them off to Sideswipe or something? What’s the point of being Prime if you don’t get to party,” Whirl visibly relaxed, satisfied that his partner was Okay.

“Tried, and that mission failed. _Miserably_. Sides’ is even worse at report writing than I am.” Rodimus’ optic flashed mischievously, giving the ex-wrecker a sideways smirk as he lifted his cube to take a mouthful, “Though I could just leave them all on your Magnus’ desk and see if they magically get done for me.”

Whirl hardly needed encouragement, “Hey I’d be willing to give it a try. If it backfires it’s _your_ lecture.”

“And _your_ brig time when I tell him who helped me break into his office,” Rodimus countered.

“You wouldn’t do that,” the copter shrugged nonchalantly; “If I was locked away you wouldn’t have anyone around to put up with you.” Usually that comment wouldn’t have bothered him, but tonight…it stung. The truth of it hurt, but he wasn’t about to let onto that.

Pushing away his earlier feelings of uncertainty, even as they tried to consume him all over again, he purred quietly to the other bot, “Or maybe I would, maybe I’d like to see you chained up, have you considered that?”

The question had the desired reaction. Whirl blushed, fidgeting in his seat distractedly as his processor worked it over. That gave Rodimus enough time to let out a shaky sigh and force himself to lock the negative thoughts away. He was going to enjoy being out tonight if it killed him.

“Kinky fragger,” the copter grumbled, still blushing, seemingly not having noticed anything out of the ordinary. Good.

“And there’s a lot more where that came from,” Rodimus teased, taking another mouthful of his drink as he savoured the look of something between shock, horror and arousal from the other mech. Whirl was adorable when it came to stuff like this, but he wouldn’t torture him for long, “But never mind that, who’s aft did you kick today?”

“Glad you asked! Heh- I actually got to kick a lot of aft today,” looking relieved, the ex-wrecker launched into an explanation of his day. Normally Rodimus would happily enjoy listening to the copter talk about his various exploits, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t stay focused on what he was saying. Every so often his mind would slip away from the conversation and back into his previous misery, and the drink didn’t appear to be helping this time.

Why did he even have to feel like this? Why now? He should feel content, his crew was safe, everything was going well, he had Whirl… but that was the problem right there wasn’t it? Whirl was amazing, not a day went by when he didn’t acknowledge that. He wasn’t truly the problem; he just sat at the centre of it.

_No, it’s your inability to let anything go that’s the problem_ , taking another mouthful of his drink miserably, _It’s over, move on_. But no matter how many times he told himself, he couldn’t, he just…couldn’t. And he hated that. He hated that he’d end up dragging Whirl into this, he hated that he had to make himself feel this way, and-

“Hey, Rod?” Rodimus blinked and flinched back when a servo waved in front of his face, bringing him out of his reverie, “Are you listening? I’m kicking aft and taking names here, you jerk.” Though Whirl didn’t mean it, he was right. Here he was moping about- and Whirl was here, he was alive and the Prime was just sitting here feeling sorry for himself- “Least you could do is-”

Without waiting for the copter to finish, Rodimus stood, trying to ignore the way his voice shock, “I have to go.” And without any further explanation, he took off; hurrying out of the bar like the wrath of Primus himself was chasing him down. He refused to break down like this in front of anyone, let alone Whirl. The ex-wrecker deserved better than that. Better than him. But the thought of a life without Whirl…unthinkable. He’d have nothing all over again. _So you’ll selfishly cling to him because you can’t be alone, you really are a piece of work_.

Ignoring the stares following him across the bar, he all but sprinted for the space bridge, his empty cube left abandoned, along with his partner.

*~*~*~*

Whirl froze as he watched Rodimus leave. Though leave may have been too gentle a word, ran away was more appropriate. As soon as the Prime was out of sight, every bot in the bar turned around to stare at him, both curious and accusatory. Right now though, he couldn’t care less what they all thought. All at once the soft, warm glow he’d held inside his spark for the last few weeks went cold. He’d pushed his limits too far, he just knew it. He’d said something, done something, pushed a little too hard. Whatever it was he’d fragged up and now…would Rodimus come back? Would he ever speak to him again? The idea of never seeing the other bot again made his spark stop with fear…how we could he keep going now? He’d lost everything, and just when he’d finally started to let someone in…he didn’t know if he could carry on alone now.

Part of him wanted to move, chase Rodimus down and demand an explanation, apologize, fix whatever he could.  But another part demanded he stay away, and begin preparing for the worst, for that inevitable message that told him to stay away from the Prime forever. The indecision kept him stock still in his seat, digits twitching with stress.

A few moments later, the minibot opposite him broke the silence, “Hey, is everything Okay with you and Rodimus?” Decidedly ignoring Swerve’s concerned question, Whirl finally got up and gave chase. Maybe the Prime didn’t want him anymore, maybe he’d already wised up and realized his mistake, but he needed to hear that from the flame coloured mech himself.

And if he really didn’t want him anymore…then at least he’d get to talk to the Prime one last time.

*~*~*~*

By the time Rodimus had made it to his room back on his own ship, drunken hysteria had taken hold and he felt like the worst bot in the multiverse. Collapsing on his berth, he ignored Pharma as the mute medi-jet settled down next to him as all but sobbed his spark out. It’d been a long time coming, even he knew that, but it didn’t really make him feel any better about it. He was supposed to be a Prime, an example to his crew, not a broken mess.

‘ _Just let it out Rodimus_ ,’ he barely felt Pharma tapping his shoulder, but he got the message, ‘ _You will feel better afterwards_.’ Later, when he was sober, he’d thank Pharma for his continued support and confidentiality, but right now he could hardly string the words together.

They remained like that for a while, Rodimus lying across his berth while Pharma watched over him silently. A situation not unfamiliar to either of them, and one the medi-jet was somewhat relieved to see. Rodimus had never allowed himself to mourn properly, and as a result…he’d rather not think about what the Prime had turned to instead. Whatever had triggered this was decidedly welcome; maybe now the flame coloured mech could start moving on.

Less than a cycle had passed before another figured popped up in Rodimus’ doorway. Expecting it to be a concerned First Aid, Pharma turned to scowl at the CMO and wave him away, only to be confronted with the sight of Whirl, not looking much better than the red mech currently sobbing beside him. It was immediately apparent that the copter knew what had transpired before this. That and his current relationship with the Prime made him a far better candidate for calming Rodimus down.

Standing quietly, he moved over to the copter and pointed at the berth, silently instructing him to take care of him before he left them alone. With a little luck Whirl would be able to get the flame coloured bot to talk, leaving only the responsibility of checking on him when he was sober to Pharma. It was certainly ideal.

For the flier left to tend to Rodimus, time seemed to stop. Hoovering in the doorway uncertainly, his spark sunk. If this…if something he’d said caused this kind of reaction… Whatever it was it was bad, it was really bad. Could Rodimus even forgive him, for whatever it was he’d done? Would he? Could the copter forgive himself for hurting the Prime _that_ badly?

No. No he couldn’t. He would never forgive himself for this, especially if he lost Rodimus.

Just as Whirl started to think coming here might have been a pointless endeavour, very slowly, Rodimus began to realize the frame that had previously been sitting next to him was gone. Looking up, he realized Pharma was gone and instead- “ _Whirl_ ,” scrambling backwards away from the worried looking copter, Rodimus quickly tried to cover up what he’d been doing, only succeeding in half flinging himself off the berth and onto the floor.

“Rodimus?!” quickly hurrying after him, the ex-wrecker looked down to make sure the drunk Prime hadn’t hurt himself. He hadn’t, but he’d seemingly given up on retaining any of his dignity.

Looking up at Whirl, his eye patch having long since fallen off, the Prime looked the picture of desperate misery, “I’m sorry- I’m so sorry, please don’t hate me, I don’t know what to do I don’t-” He cut off mid hysteric plea, desperate to make Whirl understand but unable to form coherent sentences even in his processor.

“Rod…what…I don’t understand,” kneeling down next to the hysterical bot, the copter hesitated, frowning. What was he supposed to do? This was way out of his area of expertise, let alone how far out of his comfort zone he felt right now. But that wasn’t important to his, all that mattered right now was calming his partner down.

Whimpering, and completely at a loss for how to explain his problem, the flame coloured mech curled into a ball, only managing too get one word out, “ _Drift._ ”

“What- Drift? What about…” with a loud whine, the red and gold Prime pointed up at reports scattered messily across his desk. Following the directions he’d been given, not taking his optics fully off Rodimus just in case, he tried to find some kind of explanation for all this. What did Drift have to do with anything that’d happened; he hadn’t even brought up Drift. In fact he went out of his way to regularly avoid that entire topic. That’s when he spotted it. Sitting just behind mismatch of reports was a small photo frame in decent repair considering he state of most of Rodimus’ possessions. Inside was a picture, presumably of Rodimus himself before he’d received his famous scar, and Drift. Next to it was a small puzzle box that he recognized as Drift’s (he’d seen the Drift from his own ‘verse with a few of them), and…well now that he thought about it wasn’t the sword on the wall Drift’s too? The posters looked like something that was more Drift’s taste… “ _Oh_.”

That small sound of understanding had Rodimus curling further away from the copter, certain that he’d hate him now. After all, who would want to stay in a relationship with a bot still hung up on a dead mech. So hung up on him, so unable to let go, he’d saved everything Drift owned before any of his own possessions.

Unaware of Rodimus’ inner turmoil, the copter sank slowly to the floor, unsure of how to react. This had been bothering the Prime all along, and made worse by the- how could he not have seen that? It was so incredibly obvious now. No need to panic, no end of the relationship slip ups, just past slag coming back to bite him in the aft. As bad as he should’ve felt for the other, and he did, the copter couldn’t help but feel relieved. This wasn’t over, that was what mattered, and everything else could be worked on, even if he did have no idea how he was supposed to help Rodimus with this.

After pondering the situation for a few painful moments, slowly, somewhat unsure of the reaction he was going to get, the copter brought the other mech in for a tight hug. “D-Don’t…don’t leave me,” Rodimus whimpered softly, clinging to the other bot with all the strength he was capable of. Whirl for his part clung back just as eagerly, keeping the Prime close to his frame as he murmured his promise.

“Never.”


End file.
